I'm not disputing the veracity of your comment at all, but it doesn't match my experience, for whatever that's worth.

i've got about 20 SF-1200 drives of various brands deployed at work and in my own personal machines, I've had exactly zero issues with them. I think I've got at least one or two of every brand that's available in the US, in fact, except for the OCZ and OWC drives.

I've also got a bunch of Intels (an X25-M G2, a couple 320s, a ton of 510s), a C300, some OCZ Summits (Samsung-based) and some Indilinx-based drives. Of the bunch, I've only had an issue with one-a 120GB Vertex. I wouldn't trust another OCZ drive, but I haven't personally had-or even really heard of-any large-scale issues with the SF-1200s.Reply

The 8meg bug was pretty rare with the 320s. Some Marvell controlled drives (including the 510)had LPM problems, but that was/is easily fixed. There was a G2 firmware problem, but the bug was easily identified in all of those cases, and you knew that just getting the drive RMAd would fix the problem. With the SandForce problem, you could go though drive after drive... the problem was with all of them, but only manifested itself through certain hardware and usage patterns. I would say Intel controlled and Marvell controlled drives are still mostly the way to go, but Toggle NAND equipped SF drives are worth the problems (sometimes). Whether this new "magic" OCZ only-at-this-point FW fix works on drives as a whole is another matter entirely. There were a couple of ways to make a SF2281 unhappy, and it's unclear whether this addresses all of them. I can get two of them to occur, so when the 3.3.2 FW drops, I'll peep it out.Reply

I have an Intel 320 at work and an OCZ Vertex 3 at home. I BSOD'd at home but the beta update from May/June fixed that just fine, no issues since.

I haven't had any issues at work, but Intel recommends updating to their "fixed" firmware, anyway, as the bug can strike any time. I read a little more and people who had never seen the bug all the sudden got it right after apply the patch that should have prevented it.

I still haven't updated the patch on my Intel at work. While I don't have any statistical numbers to say for sure, the whole thing reads like a crap shoot, no matter whose drive you buy.

Play the odds, and hope you're not in the minority with issues, like everything else in life.Reply

If your non-SF drive dies or is problematic, you can just swap it out with the vendor or retailer. If your SF22xx drive BSOD/Disconnects/etc, you can't do too much about it. The problem is with all the 22xxs. Luckily for everyone, it doesn't get exposed THAT much -- just enough to be a major problem for the SF vendors. I think a lot of the FW updates have basically pushed the problem around the plate for some, so that some get a perceived fix but some get the problem for the first time whereas they would not have normally seen the issue in their workload.Reply

Back up then apply the patch for the Intel. If you get the bug immediately after, then you get a new drive in the mail and lose no data.

It probably won't matter though... I had an unpatched 320 for several months with a dying graphics card that lead to 50+ "unsafe power cycles" as stated in the Intel SSD toolbox and I never had a problem with the drive. Regardless, I have since patched my 320 and never had any problems before or since.Reply

I've had a repeatable SF2281 bug that I could get every 30 hours like clockwork, or earlier with MSAHCI drivers, but at random between one and eight hours.

Initially, I would get a BSoD after thirty hours. I swapped three different motherboards, and used the drive not as a system drive, but as a secondary. That way it doesn't crash the system, the drive just disconnects (but still needs a manual power cycle). Different RST oroms and drivers didn't matter, using MSAHCI with or without the internal-only port hack made no difference. I know many vendors were claiming they didn't have any way to get a repeatable error, to which I say BS. I was able to find a fix for my system after a few weeks, but it didn't have anything to do with the claimed "fixes". The new fix may or may not stop the "problem", but I find it hard to believe that they couldn't find one system like mine out there. OCZ also claimed that the fault lied with Intel, but I believe this is evidence to the contrary. Also, it is claimed that X79 would fix Intel's problem with SF drives -- something I find doubtful as well, at least in my experience, and even more so in light of this magical FW fix.

I like a lot of the people over at OCZ, but blaming the problem on everything BUT the drive was getting old... as was the old saw that it would be a combination of fixes together that would help with stability, such as Intel getting their stuff together, then SF could get a FW patch to work. So I do indeed hope that the fix is real, and that those afflicted can get their drives functioning like the rest of modern drives -- as they should have from the beginning.Reply

The three motherboards I tested my drive on all had different versions (and different BIOS/UEFI versions have different RST oroms), but you can take the 11.x orom and "inject" it into the BIOS or UEFI with a few tools. If you have a Gigabyte or Asrock board you can look around. It didn't do me any good as the problem is with the drive... all of them.Reply

I have a Patriot Wildfire 240GB not an OCZ, but I was having this exact same problem. I was given a beta firmware update to try (they numbered it 3.3.0) and that resolved the issue completely for me, haven't had a single issue since upgrading.

But lesson learned about using bleeding edge tech in a machine I rely on for work.Reply

I recently updated to 2.13 from 2.06 with the constant headache of random shutoff and restarts etc that was plagued with the Agility 3 and the rest of the SF 2200 club I guess. What stopped me from upgrading sooner was the not so user friendly updating process since my SSD was my OS drive. Anyway... I have had NO shutdowns or any issues for 5 days straight so far. (I was lucky to keep an up time of 1 day before with no justification that I could pin point it to) and I have also seen my hard drive regain some speed. I am really looking forward to updating to 2.15 asap!Reply

It seems they treat SSDs the same way they treat RAM. But while for some reason it was considered acceptable for RAM to crash your system and have users do their own troubleshooting, it definitely isn't for the disk market. Looking through their forums you can see a lot of users trying to guess the cause of their problemsand the efforts of the staff, while well meaning are amateurish from a customer support POV.

The biggest problem though is Sandforce and it's "secret sause" as Anand calls it. The issue is that this non-standard, top secret technology is managed ONLY by sandforce, while its partners sell drives as "black boxes" i.e. they have no idea what's going on inside. That means you're depending on a tiny company to manage an comparatively large user base. Resources for bugfixing, testing and QA are not anywhere near Intel, Crucial or Samsung - neither is their business savy in dealing with customers. When problems occur they typically respond with silence.

The 1st generation SF drives were OK, IF you knew what you were getting into - Anand's articles covered a lot but not all of it. Looking through OCZ forums told a lot about the complexities of using them. Many killed their drives, by not understanding issues about the SF controller's handling of incompressible data, while some, inadvertently benched them to death. All because of the SF shroud of secrecy.Other users do bizarre hacks to optimize their systems to work with their SSD. I eventually gave up and decided I'd keep my SF1200 drive until it degrades or dies, whatever.

The 2nd generation SF drives, proved pretty conclusively why you should not do business with a tiny secretive company for a critical component. The BSOD problem was known for months over the web, but SF and OCZ called it a "rare unrepeatable issue". New firmwares supposedly addressed this "rare unrepeatable issue" but so far failed. I hope the last one does, for the poor people who bought their products, but IMHO, they're just not worth the effort.

Current generation SSD's are all so fast, it's impossible to tell the difference between a Super-fast SF drive or a plain-fast drive by any other brand. There is simply no point in taking the risk to buy an SF drive anymore (certainly not one made by OCZ). I'm getting a Crucial m4, for a lower price than an SF2x and will be happy to have slightly lower speeds, no crashes, no need to browse forums and peace of mind.

IMO the only people that can benefit from SF drives are Mac users who need a drive that does its own garbage collection, even when no TRIM is present (Apple supports TRIM only for its own, expensive SSDs).Reply

The attititude on OCZ's forums regarding this fiasco has been enough for me to sign out. I'm done. M4 or Intel for me. I'll live these 2 OCZ drives out for their lifetime but after this, I'm done.Reply

It's outrageous that Microsucks, SSD suppliers, some mobo makers, many software suppliers and others charge consumers for the privilege of Beta testing their defective products and reporting the defects. I guess there have not been enough class action lawsuits to encourage these hardware and software suppliers to properly validate their goods before releasing them to the market. Reply